Photo used with permission from Cory Driver

Former junior Cory Driver decided to drop out this summer, feeling disheartened with the school system. He now has more time to pursue other interests, such as going to trade school, building his “yaasified crust punk” band and working more hours at Qdoba. “I’d been talking to my principal and my counselor since the middle of summer. I’d keep trying to have conversations saying, ‘Hey, I want to drop out and get my GED.’ Every single time I’d try to have [that] conversation, they did whatever they could to make sure that I didn’t drop out [because] if I drop out, it makes the school look bad,” Driver said.

Former junior Cory Driver went into the school year with a LOL Surprise Doll Backpack and a determination to drop out. After months of back-and-forth with his principal and counselor, Driver emailed his administrators and teachers a minion meme reading, “I’m dropping out and getting my GED.” 

Despite the absurdity of his methods, many factors went into Driver’s decision. 

“When I was in elementary school, I had a lot of ambitions for life. I always wanted to go to MIT,  become an engineer [and] get a Ph.D. I [figured] I’ll worry about grades when I’m in high school, and it matters. When I realized that I was in high school and it mattered, I realized that [even though grades] matter legally and officially, they don’t,” Driver said. “School isn’t set up to teach people, it’s set up to prepare people to go into the workforce. They don’t give a **** about people actually learning. It’s super unhealthy for people’s minds to be taking high school so seriously.”

Driver moved to West from his school in Alaska in eighth grade, just before the beginning of the pandemic. From a young age, he explored subjects far ahead of his grade level. Because of this, he was placed in the MOSAICS explorer program, traveling to the high school each morning for math classes.

“When I was in fifth grade, I was a total nerd. I would spend my free time watching math videos on YouTube. I learned math stuff multiple years ahead of me [and] in sixth grade, they put me in Pre-Algebra. When I got here in eighth grade, I was in geometry, so I had to go to the high school for that,” Driver said. “I’d be in math with people two years older than me. I didn’t know any of them, and I didn’t understand any of the material. I stopped being a nerd, so I was falling behind.”

When COVID-19 hit, Driver went into online learning, not knowing anyone at his new school. As the nation suffered from rapidly-deteriorating mental health in lockdown, he also felt the toll of isolation and burnout and their after-effects. 

“Once I finally ended up going back to school, I was such a loser the whole time. I would sit alone at lunch every day because I didn’t know anyone. All that matters in how much people like you is how much money you have. Rich people [will be] more popular because they have nice things,” Driver said. “I didn’t start knowing anyone until sophomore year.”

During the lockdown, Driver became acquaintanced with administrators, who would also quickly get to know him better. Driver was frequently given detentions for skipping classes and drawing on his desks. 

“I moved here right before COVID-19, so I talked to counselors all the time because I never knew what was going on. I was failing school, so they didn’t think of me as someone who could ever not break the rules,” Driver said. 

Along with negative attention from administrators, Driver struggled with some teachers. Driver has ADHD and autism, which curtails his ability to focus on long lectures. Due to a lack of support for his learning needs, he often found lessons difficult to comprehend. As a neurodivergent student, Driver believes strict learning environments tore down his self-image and mental health.

“A lot of behaviors that neurodivergent people have, have been looked down upon and looked at as being very distracting. [People will say] ‘you should be looking up at the board, don’t look down, don’t tap your feet,’” Driver said. “For the most part, teachers genuinely cared about me. I’d be feeling really bad because I was just f****** up. I had a class sophomore year, and that environment didn’t work for me. The teacher made me feel like I was the problem, because I couldn’t understand and wasn’t good enough at being a student.”

Eventually, Driver decided that school and grading systems were a waste of time. He joined the 3.65% of Parkway students who do not graduate within five years.

“I would sit on the computer and stare at a screen for three hours doing nothing. I was like, ‘this is so stupid. Why am I doing this?’ The whole reason I couldn’t do school was that I was doing work that didn’t make anything. If I do my math homework, what does that do? All it does is add some numbers to my grade,” Driver said. “Why is that all that I am: just some number? I’m somehow less valuable because my grades — which don’t even mean anything —  are not as good as everyone else.”

Within a week of dropping out, Driver passed the High School Equivalency Test (HiSET) at a local community college and earned the state-issued equivalent of a high school degree. Taking the HiSET allows students who drop out to pursue careers that require a high school education. Now, he works eight-hour shifts at Qdoba with plans to continue his education in trade school. 

“I’ll be better off in terms of how I’m going to end up materially existing because if I stayed in school, I would just continue going to school [and] failing all my classes. I would have been wasting two more years of my life. But now, I have more documented education than anyone else my age,” Driver said. 

In the meantime, Driver has started a “yaasified crust punk” band, taking on both comical and serious topics with whimsical costumes and grunge aesthetics. He also has plans to start a worker cooperative where he and fellow workers would collectively own a clothing business. Despite his hopes for the future, Driver regrets some of the high school experiences he will miss out on.

“All my friends are at school, and they’re just chilling while I’m working [and] being an adult, and it’s annoying,” Driver said. “I’ll never get to graduate. I’ve gone to a couple of the football games and homecoming, even after I dropped out, but it didn’t even feel like I was there.”

Throughout these sacrifices, Driver maintains a resilient attitude about life. 

“Sometimes you’re gonna have to sleep under a bridge. Sometimes you’re gonna have to spend a night in jail. But it’s okay; that’s what life’s all about. The next day, you’re a better person. You’ve learned from everything, and everything that happens in life is stupid anyways,” Driver said.